During my 7 years as Site Consultant Engineer in about 7 big infrastructure construction projects worth hundreds of millions, I was ultimately fighting to avoid not wasting our Public money. After that, I had the opportunity to work on the development and deployment of the IIoT technologies (Industrial Internet of Things) recently and increasingly applied to construction operations. Having sensors data in real time also helps to the same goal, by enabling better and faster decisions during the construction operations.
I can see why tech companies are rapidly leaning their business strategies towards the digital transformation of the construction industry. Here there are 7 truths that will help envision the Golden Fever called "disrupting the construction business" of the next years coming.
9/10 mega infrastructure projects end up in the red by average 28% of cost overruns (University of Oxford, Bent Flyvbjerg).
Construction is not dummy! It is highly engineered and technologically advanced with mechanical, electrical, geotechnical, structural and materials engineering, numerical modelling and engineers with sharp minds able to react fast and efficiently in critical situations under unprecedented pressure.
Rome wasn’t built in one day. However, our current civilisation seems to demand much faster construction speed than the Roman civilisation.
The Ancient Egyptians built the largest and most durable magnificent projects in History without iron, crafted wood, TIC, IIoT, BIM, CMR, SaaS, ERP, SAP or Wikipedia.
"The construction industry employs about 7 percent of the world’s working-age population and is one of the world economy’s largest sectors, with $10 trillion spent on construction-related goods and services every year" (Reinventing construction through a productivity revolution, McKinsey). Apparently, it creates lots of abundance around.
It is all just about keeping the economic growth at the highest possible rates:
"Just keeping pace with projected global GDP growth will require an estimated $57 trillion in infrastructure investment between now and 2030. Practical steps can reduce infrastructure spending by 40 percent—an annual saving of $1 trillion—by boosting productivity" (McKinsey, Reinventing construction through a productivity revolution). Will this cost savings translate into cheaper infrastructures, or will they help increase the margin of construction companies instead?"Construction is among the least digitised sectors in the world" according to MGI’s digitisation index. And yet, construction is one of the very first and oldest industries.
We are now impacted by the construction transformation and will continue being as the infrastructure demand increases. Whether we are directly or indirectly working around infrastructure construction projects, or we are simply the ultimate users and taxpayers, this will impact our lives in the next 20 years.
The key question is: what is the reason why construction industry is so behind in the digitization race of the industries? Are they really ready to endure this change, that fast? Many answers and a great open discussion here. Stay tuned!